I wasn’t able to find a microfiber cloth fabric at the fabric store, but I did happen to find some stretch terry at Jo-Ann Fabrics, that happened to be on sale! It’s thin enough that it’s not so bulky it doesn’t roll up well or feel too thick when on the mat. In fact, it feels perfect. It’s soft, absorbs my sweat, and gives a nice extra bit of cushioning.

This one ended up being just a little bit shorter than my mat, which turns out to be ok, since I can’t stand in any pose with my legs at either extreme edge of the mat. The next ones I make however will be the length of the mat, and I ended up with twice as much fabric as I needed since I initially overbought just in case. I just did a simple folded edge seam for all the sides. I don’t know what the correct terminology is, since my sewing skills are very basic. I initially wanted to just finish the edges with a zigzag or something similar, like the commercial towels available. However, when I did that, the fabric wouldn’t lay flat, and it wasn’t very clean looking. The folded seam doesn’t add too much height or weight to the sides so it came out nicely.

Now for the main feature of the towel, the non slip dots! I have been a huge fan of E-6000 since I started using it for making jewelry, and knew that it would be perfect for this.  I initially bought it to make semi solid non slip bottoms for the sole of slippers I had been making in the winter. Still have to get around to doing that….Anyway, I practiced on a scrap piece of the terry with different types of dots, small, large, straight lines, wavy lines. The best were smallish medium dots. The larger dots ended up spreading out into an even larger flat circle, and tended to bleed through the fabric. The lines also bled through, and made the whole towel more stiff in the end.    
 
 

I took my towel out today to yoga practice and it was perfect! The grippy dots adhere just right to the “non slip” rubbery yoga mat surface that makes for a great sweaty-hands solution to yoga!

Making your own Sriracha is quite simple, however it might not be more economical to do it depending on how much of it you normally eat or if you have certain staples on hand. If you happen to have Fish Sauce, Garlic, and Rice Wine Vinegar already than it might be cheaper for you to make your own. But even if it’s not, it’s more fun to make it yourself anyway!

The main ingredient of course is peppers.  I’ve seen different recipes which call for different kinds of peppers. I ended up using Fresno Chile Peppers which happened to be available at Whole Foods.  You could use Thai Chilies if you can find them or whatever your favorite spicy pepper may be! You could even use Jalapenos for a green hot sauce, or red ones if you can find them.

My recipe is:

1/2 Pound of Fresno Peppers, rinsed, seeded, and chopped

1 Tsp of Fish Sauce

2 Tbsp of Rice Wine Vinegar

1 1/2 Tsp of Garlic (I like to by jars of Garlic so I always have it on hand and I don’t feel like chopping it. You can use about 2-3 Cloves of Garlic if you want)

(And you can double or triple the amounts if you want to make more, this is just how much I used. See the last photo for how much this will make.)

Put everything in a pan on medium high heat, and cook until the peppers and garlic get softened up, just before the garlic starts to brown.

Put it in a blender and puree for about 3-5 minutes.

And then you’re done! It’s the right amount of spice and flavor and it really is delicious. I might try making this again with a different type of pepper next time.

This recipe will make about this much Sriracha sauce, and should keep in the fridge for a month or so. (That would be a half Nutella container’s worth

It’s been long overdue for a new blog post! So there are some obvious changes and mainly I have a new domain name! Fraftgal.com! I came up with this name when I realized I write not only about crafts, but also food. And I like to keep things frugal when crafting, hence Fraftgal! I’ve been working on a lot of crafts over the holiday break, and VERY soon I will have my Etsy store up and running.

I also hope to post AT LEAST once a week, and will be joining the WordPress Post a Week challenge.

In the meantime until I get things flowing and straightened out here, check out some of the things I’ve made recently:

iPod touch Case made from thrift store pajama fabric

Bought some SpongeBob pajamas at a thrift shop a while ago, and they were too small, so I’ve been using the fabric to make crafts. Here’s an iPod touch case I made for Chrsitmas for my best friend (who got the Touch for Christmas). It’s thinly padded and has a satin liner, elastic opening and a loop-button closure.

OK, so I designed this but my mom sewed it up (Thank you Mom!) But now I’ll have to figure out how to do it on my own, because I have some great fabric to use to make more of these (who wants an iPod case???).

Hand Embroidery

I did the stitching around Spongebob and Patrick

There’s a pocket on the back for earbuds!

Here’s a crochet needle case my mom sewed up for me with the rest of the SpongeBob Pjs and some other leftover fabric I had lying around.

It rolls up nicely like this!

Now here are two things I made ALL by myself:

A nice warm wool beanie for a friend

And some leg warmers for myself with the leftover yarn!

First is Green Tea. Well duh, I don’t need to tell you how to make Tea. Just sharing some tips. If you didn’t know, you can cold brew tea. Sometimes, making iced tea is a little too laborious. Boil the water, steep the tea, then add cold water or ice. And I usually get the proportions wrong, so it usually ends up too strong, and adding more water does not get rid of the bitter taste. Anyway, just add tea bags to cold water. I like to fill up a Nalgene bottle, and then add 5 tea bags. I like my tea sweet, but instead of sugar, I added some Mango Juice (no sugar added, of course. Naturally sweet.). Let it sit in the fridge overnight, and BAM delicious morning bev! You don’t have to let it sit overnight, if you want it, cold steeping tea in the fridge will take about an hour.

Spicy Cauliflower Soup: I had found a recipe for  a detoxifying broccoli soup, which was basically just water, broccoli, and garlic. Well, I hate broccoli, but I’ve been on this cauliflower kick recently. So I had a head of cauliflower in the fridge, and also had just bought some vegetable broth. So I started cookin’  Here’s my recipe:

1 Head of Cauliflower, chopped up into relatively equal size pieces

About 2 cups of Vegetable Broth. You’ll need enough to just cover the cauliflower in a pot.

1-2 cloves of Garlic, chopped up. I sometimes buy chopped garlic in a jar. I used about a tablespoon. I love garlic.

1 bay leaf.

1-2 Chili de Arbol, seeded and stemmed. (If you don’t have these, and want spice, you can add chili flakes – I just didn’t think they would puree well, and I didn’t want flakes of anything in my soup. You could also add cayenne powder, Sriracha, Tabasco, or whatever your favorite spicy flavoring may be. I like these chilis and the ability to take them out after boiling- it adds an aftertaste of spicyness, but doesn’t add to or alter the pure flavor of the cauliflower, garlic, and broth.)

Fresh Ground Pepper

Leave the chilis whole and toss ‘em in.  I don’t know if the bay leaf added anything, but I bought some bay leaves when I made homemade mac n cheese for T-Day, but forgot to use it. So I figured I’d toss it in there, too.

So put everything in a pot, bring to boil.

When the cauliflower is soft enough to push a spoon through it, turn off the heat.

Put about a cupful (I used a ladle) of the cauliflower in a blender, add an equal amount of the broth. Make sure you don’t get the bay leaf of chilis. I would take them out now.

Blend the cauliflower until it’s soupy! No chunks, not too thick, not too thin. I did this in batches, so I poured the first out into a bowl, and then added more from the pot. You may have to add more broth to thin the soup.  Once all of the califlower from the pot has been pureed, I add all the previous batches back to the blender, so all of the soup is the same consistency. Blend for a minute or two until it all is flowing freely. DONE!

It’s so good!

I didn’t take any pictures of this stuff, but I just finished making this soup, took a bite, and thought WOW, so I just had to share immediately!

I had so much fun cooking for Thanksgiving this year. I tried 4 new things, and I think they all came out pretty well. My favorite was this recipe I tried from 101cookbooks, an amazing site with veggie/vegan recipes. This is SO EASY, and you must try it for your late Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner.

The recipe calls for a pumpkin or a squash, halving it, and putting it in the oven for an hour, and then pureeing it. If you don’t have that kind of patience, all you need is this: Canned Pumpkin, Can of Coconut Milk, and some Thai Red Curry Paste. Empty the pumpkin and coconut milk into a pot over medium heat. Stir. Add as much curry paste as you want! I started with about a teaspoon, and probably ended up adding 4 altogether. Had I been making this just for myself, I would have added much more, but I didn’t want it to be too spicy for everyone. You have to make sure the curry paste gets blended in well, because it is very thick. I would press it up against the sides of the pot to help the process.  I also added some ginger. I bought a tiny piece of fresh ginger, peeled it, and put it into a garlic press, and squeezed it over the pot. It just squeezed out the oil, which was nice, because I didn’t want any bits of anything in my soup.  The soup was delicious, and I actually don’t really like soup, let alone a pumpkin soup! Today I am going to try making this with an actual pumpkin. Though I don’t have an immersion blender, I think a hand blender will do just fine. We will see!

Also, a note about the curry paste. I did not find this at my local Safeway in the Asian foods section. I had to go to another store  (King Soopers, yeah, weird name, but it’s basically a Kroger), and they had it in their Asian section. Only one they had was the “Thai” brand. If you have an Asian grocery nearby, I would definitely go there to buy curry paste. Much larger selection. My Asian grocery is about 20 minutes away, and Thanksgiving was not a day I felt like going even that far. Now, you could also make your own curry paste, which would involve grinding up chiles in a pestle and mortar, along with other ingredients such as ginger, galangal, lemongrass, which you can find at the Asian grocery. And you could make this as spicy as you wanted!

I hate baking, it is too strict. You cannot mess up a thing, or it will not turn out correctly. I love cooking, to me it is much more inspiring, and hard to mess up. But I wanted to make some pumpkin cookies with nutella icing for a friend. This year and last year, I bought pie pumpkins, went through all the trouble of getting all the stringy goo out, separating the seeds to roast them, cutting and peeling and pureeing the pumpkin, and both times it was a wasted effort. Last year, I tried to make cookies, but they ended up with muffin consistency. They tasted good, but were really really super soft cookies. This is why I hate baking. I cannot figure out what ratios to use; if I have some pureed pumpkin, I don’t have a clue how much other stuff to add. So this year, I tried it again. When I pureed the pumpkin, I ended up adding too much water. So that resulted in an applesauce consistency. Gross.

So I decided to make bread, and I did find a recipe for Pumpkin Nutella bread, but like every baking recipe has a whole list of ingredients that I hate buying, such as flour, baking soda, and other usual items for baking that I’ll never use again. (It is a charming post however, and if you do like to bake, check it out).  Anyway I found this!

And it was only three bucks. Even though I hate baking, I don’t normally like using kits, but I figured since it was All Natural I should try it.  Well it was amazingly easy! You mix up some eggs, oil, and water, and then dump in the bag of dry ingredients from the box, and whisk away! Pour it in a bread pan, and then you’re almost there…

Plop in some Nutella!

I tried to make swirly designs with a knife, which ended up not even showing up, since the top just became all-over brown, but it’s good to mix in the nutella a little bit so it’s not all on top, and won’t burn.

Yum!!!

It came out perfectly, and I didn’t even follow the high altitude directions! It was deliciously moist, and the Nutella was still gooey.  Something easy to make for a holiday par-tay!

See my previous post on more about this project!

I started out with a shoebox, and a plastic box frame I picked up at Goodwill for 1 or 2 bucks. I put the frame on top of the shoebox and traced around it. I used a craft knife to cut it out. I am really terrible at being precise with the craft knife, so it ended up being a little too large of a hole in some places, and the lines were crooked. Ideally, I would do it again, but this actually turned out pretty well, because I just went crazy with super glue along all sides of the frame on the underside of the lid, and it’s in there pretty securely now.

That is a lot of superglue right there

As you can see here, it doesn't line up at all! But so far the superglue is holding up!

This is a simple flourescent light I picked up at Goodwill for 2 bucks!

Place a sheet of tracing paper on top to diffuse the light

And turn on the light, voila! Simple lightbox!

It’s really great for viewing slides

And for tracing embroidery patterns! Here is my next project. I figured I would make something for myself, since I hardly ever do. One of my favorite Hunter S. Thompson quotes.

It’s from Part 1, Chapter 12 of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

“No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride… and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well…maybe chalk it off to forced consciousness expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.”

And here it is all ready to be stitched up, after I traced it with a transfer pen, which rubs off easily if any is still visible after it’s all done.

And by the way, that is the Treefrog font I used to make it.

All in all, this cost about $4, or $14, if you consider the shoes that came in the box. I already had tracing paper, but a pack of tracing paper can’t be much more than a few dollars as well.

Just finished an overdue birthday present…

I traced a map of Kansas onto the fabric, printed out the word Kansas in this font, AdLib BT and traced that as well. Everything else was freehanded.

This was based on one of my favorite souvenirs ever:

The Inspiration. Whoever came up with this magnet has never been to Kansas.

Just as I finished on the plane! The stewardess thought it was cute

First I drew up a little sketch. I googled an image of Spongebob surfing, and of a couch as a guide.

And then I traced it onto tracing paper, with colored pencil.

I used transfer paper to copy the image onto the fabric. However, it was very faint, so I used the drawing as a reference anyway.

I boosted the contrast here so it was visible in the photo. In reality, the blue lines are barely visible.

Then I started stitching away! Here are some close ups

I'm ready! I'm ready!

Some split stitches for the couch

And of course I had to sign it!